"Ever read Maureen "Are men necessary?" Dowd?"

[Stella_Omega]

I haven't, but it looks, from the reviews, as if the book indicts men and women for the same faults. She's one of those hollering-type columnists, isn't she? All polemical and pissed off. At everyone, not only men. I am not positive she's a "feminazi".

 

[Stella_Omega]

found this review and, yes-- seems like the book is feminazi indeed. She also seems-- (from this review only, I have not read the book)-- to be a follower of the soundbite school of journalism. What a shame.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

She has a long pattern of editorials beyond just her book, that bash the hell out of men. Even so, lots of people have nonetheless come to believe Maureen Dowd really "doesn't mean it that way" when she is bashing men. That's the power of charisma, and she has charisma by the truckload.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The last thing I read by Ms. Dowd was her hysterical and asinine reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings. Evidently the fact that someone at the university has a white beard is a point of insufferable offense to Ms. Dowd. As a result, the fact that university officials were legally incapable of institutionalizing the perpetrator and that they did in fact report him to the police, attempt to direct him to psychological treatment, and work with the man himself to try to address his problems in a supportive way was simply an unforgivable attempt to ignore the problem.

According to Ms. Dowd, someone should have "acted like an adult," although in what way one is hard put to say. Presumably it would be by enacting a police state in which university officials are permitted to incarcerate students, commit them to mental institutions, or permanently ban them from public life based on the hunches of their professors.

Oh, and she began by stating that no one, including both the unversity folk and the wider population of the United States, felt any serious emotion about the tragedy, and that all expressions of grief or support were hollow and meaningless. I'd mention a gentleman named Freud and his ideas on projection here, but I seem to recall that he had a beard, and it may have been white.

Seriously, it was a disgraceful bit of scrawl. Absolutely shameful.

 

[rgraham666]

I recall her 'no good men left' screed from a few years ago. What she meant was 'there are no good men left who are higher on the social scale than I am'.

Or so I interpreted it.

It also seemed to me that she was still trapped in the old way of thinking, that women must partner with men 'more successful' than themselves.

Which, considering where she sits on the 'success' scale, cuts herself off from a lot of men who she might be very happy with.

Chuckle. The eye cannot see itself.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I recall her 'no good men left' screed from a few years ago. What she meant was 'there are no good men left who are higher on the social scale than I am'.

I think I go more elementally than that, most of the time. I read it to mean "No one I want can stand to be near me, and it's their fault, damnit!"

 

[Stella_Omega]

She has a long pattern of editorials beyond just her book, that bash the hell out of men. Even so, lots of people have nonetheless come to believe Maureen Dowd really "doesn't mean it that way" when she is bashing men. That's the power of charisma, and she has charisma by the truckload.

The charisma of assholery, like Rush Limbaugh. And just about as reliable. Bummer, man, she should have stuck to politics.

I have a teensy debating fault-- it's that I tend to talk about big issues in personal terms. Dowd seems to translate her her personal issues into global ones. She's unhappy, everyone must be unhappy, or else they are the enemy.

 

[rgraham666]

I think I go more elementally than that, most of the time. I read it to mean "No one I want can stand to be near me, and it's their fault, damnit!"

Hmmm. Now that I think on it, there was a fair bit of that in it as well.

Perhaps we should send her one of those T-shirts that reads "It's not you, it's me."

 

[BlackShanglan]

Hmmm. Now that I think on it, there was a fair bit of that in it as well.

Perhaps we should send her one of those T-shirts that reads "It's not you, it's me."

" ... and the other 98% of the population you can't get on with."

 

[BlackShanglan]

I have a teensy debating fault-- it's that I tend to talk about big issues in personal terms. Dowd seems to translate her her personal issues into global ones. She's unhappy, everyone must be unhappy, or else they are the enemy.

Indeed. That important distinction between using personal examples to illustrate a broader problem and assuming that one's personal issues mean that there must be a broader problem needs to be taught more rigorously in the public schools, I think.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I recall her 'no good men left' screed from a few years ago. What she meant was 'there are no good men left who are higher on the social scale than I am'.

Or so I interpreted it.

It also seemed to me that she was still trapped in the old way of thinking, that women must partner with men 'more successful' than themselves.

Which, considering where she sits on the 'success' scale, cuts herself off from a lot of men who she might be very happy with.

Chuckle. The eye cannot see itself.

^^^^^
He hit the nail on the head and hammered it all the way to China.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I think I go more elementally than that, most of the time. I read it to mean "No one I want can stand to be near me, and it's their fault, damnit!"

Yup, when someone as good looking as her can't get a man, she's got to be one hell of a beast on the inside.

 

[CeriseNoire]

Indeed. That important distinction between using personal examples to illustrate a broader problem and assuming that one's personal issues mean that there must be a broader problem needs to be taught more rigorously in the public schools, I think.

Well, in my lesson on facts vs. opinions, I usually begin by saying this: "Your believing something doesn't make it a fact." Last year I got three angry phone calls accusing me of bashing religion as a result of that lesson. It's an uphill battle, I tell you.

 

[S-Des]

Well, in my lesson on facts vs. opinions, I usually begin by saying this: "Your believing something doesn't make it a fact." Last year I got three angry phone calls accusing me of bashing religion as a result of that lesson. It's an uphill battle, I tell you.

Heretic.

 

[rgraham666]

Heretic.

She's not the only one.

 

[Lee Chambers]

Well, in my lesson on facts vs. opinions, I usually begin by saying this: "Your believing something doesn't make it a fact." Last year I got three angry phone calls accusing me of bashing religion as a result of that lesson. It's an uphill battle, I tell you.

Guns and baseball bats make it easier.


"Your believing something doesn't make it a fact. But shooting you in the face does make it easier to ignore you."

[/JOKE]

I spent a year on the college newspaper working with nothing but women (including the gay guy on the staff). It was a horrific experience and eventually they learned not to talk shit about men around me because I got fed up with listening to them bash us. Sorry, ladies, but some of us get offended when you insult our entire gender based on your shitty experiences. Then some of us get into violent shouting matches that result in broken windows and having to explain to the college President why one of the college security trucks is parked in the south wall of the newsroom.



I made that last part up.

 

[john-the-author]

Well, in my lesson on facts vs. opinions, I usually begin by saying this: "Your believing something doesn't make it a fact." Last year I got three angry phone calls accusing me of bashing religion as a result of that lesson. It's an uphill battle, I tell you.

Oh, puh-LEEZE! So, did you tell them that you were sorry for insulting their imaginary friends or did you just tell them to go fuck themselves with a chain saw? Either response would have been appropriate.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Guns and baseball bats make it easier.


"Your believing something doesn't make it a fact. But shooting you in the face does make it easier to ignore you."

[/JOKE]

I spent a year on the college newspaper working with nothing but women (including the gay guy on the staff). It was a horrific experience and eventually they learned not to talk shit about men around me because I got fed up with listening to them bash us. Sorry, ladies, but some of us get offended when you insult our entire gender based on your shitty experiences. Then some of us get into violent shouting matches that result in broken windows and having to explain to the college President why one of the college security trucks is parked in the south wall of the newsroom.



I made that last part up.

An amazing experience, isn't it? Kind of like being the only woman in an office and listening to the men around you talk shit about women, until you can convince them that it won't make for a cordial working atmosphere.

Which results -- nowadays-- in being the only woman in an office and having to convince the men that sexual jokes are just fine with me-- that it is not the same thing as shit talk.

Or, being one of many women and men in an office, and not wanting to hear shit talk from either sex. Or enduring the complaints of one guy who is pissed that he can't run his wife down. Or some woman who is offended at sexual innuendo being passed back and forth between two co-workers.

But interpersonal relationships are always tricky, yanno?

 

[Lee Chambers]

But interpersonal relationships are always tricky, yanno?

Hell yes. It was funny as hell when I told them that I actually READ Playboy magazine. My editor got pissed and said that Playboy exploits women and uses them. I made the argument that while some women in the pornography women got used and screwed over (no pun intended), Playboy magazined payed extremely well. Centerfolds make around ten thousand dollars for their first shoot. Playmate of the Year gets a brand new car. Then there are appearances and other photo shoots, all of which they get paid for and earn the reputation of being some of the most beautiful and sexual women on the planet (even if it is all Photoshopped ).

We argued for many weeks about it and I finally brought an issue up there for her to read. Since she had never actually seen a Playboy, she really had no clue what was in there and quickly stopped bashing it.

I'll slam men for shit talking women too, because I can't stand that gender-stereotype bullshit. One of the guys I work with said that he wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because all it would take is one really lousy day while she's on her period and she'll launch all the nukes.

I proceeded to slap him with my hammer and told him to go back to work.



I made that last part up.

 

[CeriseNoire]

Funny enough, the conversation made no mention of religion at all. And it made sense as an introduction to the concept. Oh well, the fun phone calls come along with the job.

As for the male-bashing, I think I got over that phase around age nineteen. There are crummy people across gender lines.

 

[DeeZire]

I used to read Maureen Dowd when the local paper printed her weekly column. Thought she was a very good writer - entertaining, illuminating - but apparantly the gender politics either went over my head or I agreed with her stance. She can be a bit sarcastic, which some people take literally.
She was good on the Bill Maher show, which probably validates the soundbite comment mentioned earlier. I suspect media professionals get good at soundbites because if they don't, they lose their jobs as media professionals.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Well, in my lesson on facts vs. opinions, I usually begin by saying this: "Your believing something doesn't make it a fact." Last year I got three angry phone calls accusing me of bashing religion as a result of that lesson. It's an uphill battle, I tell you.

My first thought upon reading this, speaking as a person of faith, was, "That's why we call it faith. You know. That thing that relies on something other than factual evidence to support itself."

It drives me absolutely mad when people try to prove God factually. I can't help thinking that the inability to distinguish between the purposes of empirical investigation and religious faith is at the bottom of the various forms of insanity involved in denying the existence of evolution. It seems to me, ultimately, to be cheating; if you pretend that everything is already proven, then there's no real effort needed to maintain one's faith.

But at any rate, then I saw this ...

Funny enough, the conversation made no mention of religion at all. And it made sense as an introduction to the concept. Oh well, the fun phone calls come along with the job.

Hah! I'm reminded of a 19th-century lawsuit filed by a town that alleged an author had maligned it with a negative depiction in his work. The name of the town had been changed, but the residents argued that he'd clearly referred to them.

The judge very sensibly ruled that if that negative depiction was so accurate as to strike them as a strong resemblence, they could hardly blame the author for the fact that they recognized themselves.